Latest news with #audiogram
WIRED
07-08-2025
- WIRED
Ceretone's Revamped Core One Pro Hearing Aids Are a Blunt Instrument
To control volume, the hearing aids have to be seated in the included case—a traditional, compact device that provides 80 hours of additional charge. Two buttons—one for each aid—cycle the device through six volume levels. An LED display situated between the two hearing aids indicates the volume setting for each one as it is adjusted. (Having one volume meter for two devices is a little confusing, so it's important to remember it only shows the status for the most recently adjusted hearing aid.) The case also includes a small indicator that shows the hearing program setting for each aid, of which there are now four: standard, restaurant, outdoor, and tinnitus-masking, all self-explanatory. (Note that I did not test the tinnitus masking mode, as I don't suffer from the condition.) These modes can be cycled through by tapping the device twice while it's in your ear, and as with adjusting the volume, each ear is controlled individually. It's strange (and inconvenient) to have to control mode and volume via two different methods, and always one ear at a time, but if you rarely change your hearing aids' volume level, it may not be that much trouble. Ineffective Aids Photograph: Chris Null The bigger problem with the Core One Pro hearing aids is that, as with the Core One, they just aren't all that effective. Since the aids aren't tunable, there is no way to customize them based on your audiogram, which means that all frequencies get boosted upward, more or less. This was immediately noticeable in my testing as lower-level frequencies were amplified far more than I needed, causing everything from footsteps to running water to be uncomfortably loud, and painfully so if I turned the volume up past level three (of six total settings). I also found a steady stream of hiss underlying everything, though this was at least mitigated at the lowest volume levels. Over time, at anything over volume level one, the Ceretone Core One Pro hearing aids were more distracting than beneficial, though there's no denying the amplification power they have. At higher volume levels, the hearing aids were downright deafening. They're also not as comfortable for long-term wear as the original Core One, though this probably had more to do with the eartips, which are a little rough around the edges, than the design of the hearing aid hardware itself. As with the original Core One, I'm not entirely sure who these hearing aids are designed for, even at a quite reasonable price of $390. (List price is $700, for what it's worth.) Without any tunability features, users are getting a very blunt audio experience that prioritizes brute amplification over everything instead of helping them better hear the sounds they want to hear.
WIRED
14-05-2025
- WIRED
The Eargo 8 Are Super Lightweight OTC Hearing Aids With Prescription-Level Pricing
More importantly, there is no indication of battery life in the app. Like the Eargo 7, the Eargo 8 claims an impressive 16 hours of running time (plus a whopping 224 more hours of charge in the slightly larger carrying case), but there's no way to tell where you're at until the battery nears empty. The good news is it's hard to exhaust 16 full hours of operation in one go. In my testing, I could only drain the battery fully by leaving the aids out of the case overnight. Iffy Software Photograph: Eargo I've complained (twice before) about Eargo's rocky audiogram training system, which uses ultrasonic signals from your phone to communicate with the hearing aids rather than wireless tech like Bluetooth. It keeps the hearing aids very small because they don't need a Bluetooth radio to work. Eargo is not unique in using this tech, but its implementation remains iffy, even after years on the market. My training session took nearly half an hour because the hearing aids missed a large portion of the ultrasonic signals, causing them to fail to send a tone to my ears when they should have. That's a big problem, because there's no telling whether you couldn't hear the tone because you're going deaf or because the hearing aids failed to register the signal properly. I found training more frustrating than ever this time around. That same technology is also used to control the aids via app commands. While it's not as big a deal if a volume change is missed and you have to send the request again, it's still a pain (especially if one hearing aid gets the signal and the other does not). It also means you can't use these aids for streaming over Bluetooth, which is a bigger issue today than ever. At this point, it's probably time for Eargo to explore something more reliable, even if it means selling a larger device. The units support physical double-taps on the ear, but only to switch among the three environmental programs you can choose in the app. The taps registered reliably in my testing, though I didn't notice much difference among the various modes. The aids are plenty comfortable, in part because of their very light weight, though Eargo's ear tips are a little on the itchy side. After a few hours of wear, I invariably had to remove them to give my ears some time to recover. (Oddly, only three pairs of ear tips are included: small, medium, and large, with open vents.) The Eargo 8 aids are not cheap, now running $2,699 per pair. (The Eargo 7 aids now cost $2,399.) While Eargo products have always been expensive, in today's market, a near-$3,000 asking price puts these aids almost into prescription pricing territory, which is difficult to justify. The Eargo 8 aids remain excellent in audio quality, and the small size is perfect, but the upgrades here are simply not enough to merit this kind of price, given the surfeit of equally excellent over-the-counter competitors available for less.
